Chapter Seven

The World of Sex in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan

This chapter examines select topics in the general realm of sex and sexuality in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan. We start with the Tokugawa period and focus mainly on urban popular culture and symbolic representation. In other words, we will examine the "language" of sex in Tokugawa Japan, with "language" here including both visual images and words. By doing so, we will understand the predominant manner in which people at this time and place viewed sexuality. By the late nineteenth century, the Tokugawa urban view of sexuality had begun to undergo major change, largely as a result of state intervention. We finish by surveying these changes with respect to views of sexuality and the human body, comparing the Tokugawa situation with that of the late Meiji period.

Woodblock Prints as Popular, Consumable Culture

Woodblock prints were images produced by pressing a succession of carved wooden blocks, often with each block dipped in a different color of ink, onto a stationary piece of paper or thin canvas. For an explanation of the details of print making in Tokugawa times, see #this web site.# The key point for our purposes is that woodblock prints were mass-produced for the purpose of resale to the general public. Although art had long been a consumable commodity, the efficient production of woodblock prints brought prices down to levels that most residents of Edo could afford.

Because woodblock prints were produced for the general public, they featured themes and topics with wide appeal such as popular stage actors (the rough equivalent of today's film and pop music stars), sumō athletes, famous places of natural beauty, and recent social or political scandals. And guess what was the most popular topic of such prints? Neo-Confucian metaphysics? Not quite. Sex, glamour, and romance? Yes.

Tokugawa-period woodblock prints are generally called ukiyo-e 浮世絵, meaning "images of the floating world." Many people incorrectly think that the term ukiyo-e means erotic images, probably because so many ukiyo-e were erotic. But ukiyo-e encompass landscape scenes and a wide variety of non-erotic themes. Erotic woodblock prints were most commonly known as shunga 春画, meaning "spring pictures." The word "spring" often means "youthful sexual beauty" or "youthful sexual vigor"  in Japanese usage then or now. Prostitution, for example, is baishun 売春, "selling spring," which has a different emotive sense than the English term. Similarly, the word "color" (iro 色 by itself -shoku -色 in compound words) often means eroticism or sexuality. (For a detailed list of terms connected with woodblock prints: #click here.#)

Before continuing, take a look at several of these sites (especially the first) and study some of the prints:

Ukiyo-e from Museum Nagoiya  <> Jim Breen's ukiyo-e Gallery <> ukiyo-e: Pictures of the Floating World <> Ukiyoe in the Sweetbriar Collection  <> from the Tobacco and Salt Museum <> Misc. ukiyo-e 

Prior to the Tokugawa period, the term "ukiyo," "floating world," conjured up mental images of sadness and anxiety regarding the transitory nature of this world. The term, of course, is of Buddhist origin. During the Tokugawa period, however, the term ukiyo underwent a transformation. It came to mean a place of pleasure, consumption, sensuality, and hedonism, but with a positive connotation of "the world of pleasure." In the words of art historian Richard Lane:

for the newly liberated townsmen of the seventeenth-century Japanese Renaissance "floating world" tended to lose its connotations of the transitory world of illusion and to take on hedonistic implications. It denoted the newly evolved stylish world of pleasure, the world of easy women and handsome actors, all the varied pleasures of the flesh. (Richard Lane, Images from the Floating World: The Japanese Print (New York: Konecky and Konecky, 1978), p. 11.)

(#Tokugawa-Period Academic Reading#)

Major Topics in ukiyo-e Prints Include:

The discussion below focuses mainly on the topics in bold print.

The earliest ukiyo-e, in the first decades of the Tokugawa period were figure paintings. A representative early example is #Princess Sen and Her Lover,# which depicts a granddaughter of Tokugawa Ieyasu, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, receiving a letter from a samurai lover. Passion lurks beneath the surface of the painting as the princess eagerly reads the samurai's letter. In #Bathhouse Girls# we find bold sensuality mixed with a sense of strength and confidence. Public bathhouses were numerous in Tokugawa Japan, and most were simply places to bathe, with no connection with prostitution. In certain areas, however, one could find "special" bath houses, staffed with voluptuous attendants who did more than simply scrub customers' backs. The bakufu banned such bathhouses in 1657, but, despite some occasional attempts at enforcing the ban, the bathhouses continued to exist. They exist today as well and are known by the generic term "soapland." Perhaps the most common theme of the early ukiyo-e paintings were the courtesans who inhabited the pleasure quarters found in every major urban area. #Courtesans at Leisure# is a large screen painting depicting eighteen courtesans in various scenes from ordinary life (#another example#). Ordinary life was the subject of much of the later ukiyo-e as well. In the case of courtesans, depictions of their "ordinary," that is, private, lives often had voyeuristic overtones as we shall see. 

Elite courtesans, who were famous celebrities, plied their trade in a district on the outskirts of Edo called #Yoshiwara# (it relocated from time to time, sometimes, temporarily, to more central locations in Edo). Yoshiwara was the bakufu-sanctioned, expensive, high-class brothel district, frequented by many of the wealthy and sophisticated men of Edo. For more details, see Gerald Figal's #"A Night at the Yoshiwara."#

By the 1660s, the first mass-produced woodblock prints began to appear, often in the form of pages illustrating of handbooks on sex. These prints were created from sets of wooden blocks and could, therefore, be produced in quantity. Although initially expensive, the price of these prints dropped steadily as more efficient methods of production developed along with greater consumer demand. We should bear in mind that these illustrated sex manuals were perfectly legitimate books in their day. As Lane points out, "these erotica must be regarded in the light of seventeenth-century Japanese life and mores. Sex was considered a very natural function, and ways of increasing enjoyment of this function were felt to be more commendable than censurable." (Ibid., p. 37. For a somewhat dissenting view, see Timon Screech, Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700-1820.) The subject matter soon broadened well beyond sex manuals, but sexuality, in one form or another, remained at least a subtle presence in many ukiyo-e prints. During the eighteenth century, technical advances in the print making process led to multi-colored prints.

#Lovers Surprised# (ca. 1660s) is a good example of the early phase of mass-produced prints. Although only two people are depicted explicitly, the skillful used of detail in their facial expressions creates the effect of the presence of a third person. By the middle of the eighteenth century, multi-colored prints had become mass-produced commodities as well.

Unlike the case in Europe, Japanese artists did not celebrate the nude figure in their work in any medium until the late Meiji period. Japanese popular art of the eighteenth century, detailed polychrome prints of famous beautiful women--usually courtesans--were much in demand (#typical courtesan example#). These prints emphasized the subtle, often elaborate facial features, gestures, long hair, and richly decorated clothing of these women to convey a sense of erotic beauty and sexual power.

In most erotic prints (whether featuring courtesans or not), partial nudity--often revealing the "jade gate" and "jade stalk" in exaggerated detail--was common in depictions of sexual acts, but it was the *combination of partial nudity, clothing and behavior* that made such prints appealing to consumers. The nude male or female figure itself was not an object of artistic depiction in Tokugawa times, whether to convey a sense of the erotic or for any other purpose.

*Lovers with Clam Shell* (part of the Uta makura, Poems of the pillow, series) by the famous ukiyo-e artist #Kitagawa Utamaro# (1753-1806), produces a particularly striking sense of sensual passion. The interplay of legs and sheer clothing, the grasping hands, and the man's intense right eye (look closely just below the woman's hair) as the two lovers embrace contribute to the overall impact of the print. There is another erotic element to the picture that is specific to Japanese culture: The nape of the neck, which the woman displays prominently in her passion, was a highly erogenous part of the body. It was common for ukiyo-e prints to include poems, usually about something in nature, with obvious sexual connotations. The poem on the man's fan reads:

Its beak caught firmly in the clam's shell

The snipe cannot fly away

On an autumn evening

Most Japanese, then and now, regard autumn as the best season, a time when the intense heat and humidity of the summer had passed, and the evenings had become pleasantly cool.

Many ukiyo-e prints have a voyeuristic quality, perhaps most commonly achieved by depicting women bathing. Consumers of prints were particularly interested in behind-the-scenes depictions of courtesans as they might appear while at rest, such as in Utamaro's *Courtesan in Dishabille.* Although such a print may not seem voyeuristic to contemporary viewers, courtesans were mysterious sexual celebrities to most Edo men. Only the richest could purchase their services, and even these men saw courtesans only in their quasi-official mode as entertainers. To see a courtesan in her completely private moments was thus quite interesting to many print buyers.

More obviously voyeuristic, sexually explicit depictions between a man and woman often featured a third party watching the activity. Sometimes this third party was a serving maid. In other cases, the artist would include a diminutive male or female figure who would watch the activities of the main characters and comment on them. Even today, voyeurism, eavesdropping on the sexual activities of others, is a major component in Japanese eroticism.

Images Intended for Women?

Clearly, and not surprisingly, men were the main consumers of the explicitly erotic ukiyo-e prints (shunga). Were any such prints--or the functional equivalent--produced, in whole or in part, for women? It is only recently that some students of Tokugawa-period art have asked this question, so the answer is still taking shape. It seems that at least a few prints may have been in whole or in part aimed at women as potential consumers. One possible example is Inagaki Tsurujo, #Woman Manipulating a Glove Puppet,# from the late eighteenth century. The puppet of a shakuhachi-playing wandering Buddhist monk that the woman is manipulating is full of phallic overtones. This work is a painting, not a print, but we do not know the identity of the person who commissioned it. Inagaki Tsurujo was a female painter, and the image clearly suggests both female control over and satisfaction with the phallic-like monk puppet.

Another possibility is Chōbunsai Eishi's #Woman Dreaming Over the Tales of Ise.#  Here, a woman has fallen asleep while reading the Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari) is a Heian-period work of classical literature. From the part of the print above the woman's sleeping head we can see the content of her dreams: a scene of illicit lust between Ariwara-no-Narihira, famous by Edo times as a great lover, and a lady he carried off to the province of Musashi. This part of of the Tales of Ise is illustrated less elegantly #in this Edo-period edition.# Hopefully, future research will help clarify the extent to which women both produced and consumed shunga.

"Few peoples, said Lane, "have ever pursued the cult of artistic erotica as assiduously as the Japanese." (Images from the Floating World, p. 113.) Nevertheless, one should not get the impression that all ukiyo-e prints were about eroticism in a narrow sense. The prints dealt with the many other aspects of relations between men and women, as well as other topics. The parting of lovers, usually in the morning, was a common theme. Such depictions are somewhat reminiscent of Heian-period sentiments, but the Tokugawa-period versions tend to convey a stronger sense of mutual, poignant emotions. Sometimes the emotions of love and courtship were conveyed through the image of only one person, who would, of course, be depicted #showing strong emotions.#

The ukiyo-e prints also celebrated the excitement of courtship, particularly among teenagers experiencing, perhaps for the first time, the full force of emotions connected with love and lust. A closely related point is that this art form celebrated youth. One rarely sees anyone in an ukiyo-e print who appears over forty; youths in their very early teens are quite common. Many scholars have commented that Tokugawa-period intellectual thought tended to celebrate nature's vitality. The youthful vitality evident in many of the ukiyo-e prints may be a popular manifestation of the same tendency. Toyonobu's  (1711-85) #Girl Tying Verse to a Cherry Branch# is an example of this type of print. Here, a teenage girl at a festival strains to tie a love poem to a cherry branch in full bloom, the spring season corresponding to passion and love in Japanese symbolism.

Famous, beautiful courtesans became perhaps the most representative subject matter of the color prints of the eighteenth century. Recall that the elite courtesans were social celebrities. Prints of these courtesans, therefore, functioned roughly like photographs or posters of famous actors, actresses, popular musicians, et cetera did and do in more recent times. The elaborate dress of the elite courtesans provided an excellent opportunity for artists to display their talent. Because the courtesans' robes were multi-colored and bright, artists could strive for a realistic effect while still providing consumers of the prints with a rich array of bright color. (#courtesan examples#)

ukiyo-e prints also dealt with subjects other than relations between men and women. Prints often, for example, depicted different types of occupations such as wood cutters and #vendors of various types.# During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, #landscapes# enjoyed a period of intense popularity (see more examples from links at the start of this chapter). Modern copies of these landscape prints still figure prominently in materials intended for tourists or consumption outside Japan. Why? Because they convey nice, wholesome images of the quaint Japan of bygone days--an image that still has great appeal to the imaginations of many people outside of Japan. This is not to imply, however, that there was anything artistically lacking in the best of the ukiyo-e landscape prints, for many are magnificent accomplishments of the highest quality.

The bakufu sometimes attempted to regulate or censor ukiyo-e prints. But remember, while a small segment of Confucian-influenced moralists did condemn the celebration of sexuality in art, their views were not representative of most Japanese of the time, whether samurai or commoners. Bakufu regulations, therefore, rarely took serious aim at "rectifying morals" by reducing exposure to sexually-explicit art. The primary objective was to reduce luxury consumption and spending. Bakufu officials tended to have an antiquated view of economic laws, often regarding luxury spending as a drain on the economy as a whole. Because ukiyo-e prints were not necessities, and because they were extremely popular, the bakufu often sought to "rectify morals" by limiting such things as the size, paper quality, number of colors and so forth. These regulations usually had a temporary effect but were never successful in the long run in curbing public consumption of large, brightly-colored prints. Another area of censorship involved politics. One artist, for example, received a brief prison sentence for depicting Toyotomi Hideyori (Hideyoshi's son, killed by Tokugawa Ieyasu). Anything even indirectly connected with questions of bakufu legitimacy was dangerous ground, although it was rare that an artist would receive more than a mild punishment (e.g., a short period of house arrest) for running afoul of the bakufu in this way.

During the Meiji period and later, censorship of art and literature became much more strict, and sexuality itself gradually came to be regarded as a corrupting influence on morality. Sexually explicit art still flourished in modern times, as it always does, but it was no longer in the mainstream of popular tastes as it had been earlier. Today, mainstream attitudes about sexuality and nudity in Japan have a distinctly "Puritanical" quality similar to, albeit somewhat less intense than, the situation in the United States. The modern state, through its censors, educational system, and by other means has helped sweep away the relatively more celebratory attitude toward sex and the pleasures of the flesh common in Tokugawa times.

Interestingly, the image of Japan as a sexual paradise for men was common in the United States a generation ago, and it still lingers vaguely in the backs of many American minds. This view was the product of the immediate postwar generation of U.S. soldiers who, owing to their power as conquerors and possessors of highly-valued dollars, found sex readily available. As one competent observer of contemporary Japan has noted:

Buried somewhere in the minds of many Western men is an image of pliant raven-haired beauties, all trained in the most contortionist ways to please a man. Although their numbers are mercifully dwindling, there are still some American men who only want to hear about "geisha girls" when they learn that I have lived in Japan. . . . [I]t is a shock for many Westerners to discover that in terms of sexual latitude, Japan lies closer to Spain and Portugal than to Sweden. (Jared Taylor, Shadows of the Rising Sun: A Critical View of the "Japanese Miracle," [Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc., 1983], p. 185.)

Sexuality is still a major part of life in Japan, of course, as it is in all societies. Even the power of the modern state cannot fully suppress it. So, not surprisingly, in today's Japan sexuality permeates advertising, fashion and many other realms of life. The point here is not that sex is less important in today's Japan, but simply that social attitudes regarding it have undergone significant changes since the Tokugawa period--as we will see in a later section.

The Language of Sex in Tokugawa Japan

Having surveyed the broad field of sexually explicit or suggestive woodblock prints, let us now explore some of the symbolism--mostly visual--of Edo-period sexuality. Our main guides will be Timon Screech (Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700-1820), Hayakawa Monta (The Shunga of Suzuki Harunobu: Mitate-e and Sexuality in Edo, translated by Patricia J. Fister [Kyoto, Japan: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2001]), and Hatori Yukio (服部幸雄, Sakasama no yūrei さかさまの幽霊 [Heibonsha, 1989]). One important caveat: This survey of sexual language/symbolism is not balanced. It examines only material from commercial publishers of prints, books, etc. This material was created almost entirely by men almost entirely for men (only a very small number of women produced erotic art for public or quasi-public consumption--#two examples#). Therefore, we are examining male-oriented symbols. Furthermore, we are dealing mainly with urban culture in Japan's largest cities, especially Edo. It is quite likely that nearly all urban women and many rural-dwelling men and women would have readily understood these urban, male symbols. But it is also likely that their own communication about sexual matters would have employed a different symbolic language.

For humans, at least, sex and eroticism results from a complex interplay of #socio-cultural codes and biological imperatives#. So closely have the social and the biological been intertwined and for so long (since pre-historic times) that completely and clearly separating the two is probably impossible. Our emphasis here is on the social and cultural elements of eroticism in a particular time and place, but were we attempting systematically to understand human sexuality in total, we would also need to look closely at the biological aspects of the processes.

Although the material here falls into the realm of popular culture, we should not make the mistake of regarding it as simple or highly transparent in meaning. Typically, erotic poems, stories, and images contained multiple layers of interrelated symbolism, and consumers of these texts and images apparently enjoyed mentally unraveling these symbols. Tokugawa-period artists had at their symbolic disposal a vast native literary tradition as well as the vast literary tradition of China. Scenes from the Tale of Genji, references to famous Chinese poets of antiquity, and references to Chinese Daoist immortals--to take but three examples--were common in Tokugawa-period Japanese eroticism. Let us take a closer look ate some of these possibilities.

To begin, consider this *eighteenth-century example,* which takes as its subject matter a famous scene from the "Evening Faces" Chapter of the Heian-period classic, The Tale of Genji. Viewers would have recognized the scene as a meeting between Prince Genji and Yūgao, with whom he had an intense and tragic relationship. (*brief scene summary*)  The moonflowers above and around the lady as she stands in the doorway serve as the major symbol pointing to the scene from Genji. But the image here is not an attempt at replicating the scene as Lady Murasaki originally described it. Instead, it seeks to translate (or transpose) the scene into the cultural context of eighteenth-century Edo. Yūgao appears as a classic bijin 美人 (beautiful woman) of eighteenth-century urban Japan, and Genji appears as a wealthy dandy (tsū 通 or tsūjin 通人). Genji's servant and ox cart have been reduced to a toy insect box carried by a young boy. The insect box is in the shape of an ox cart. The flowing stream over which Yūgao stands is a classic Tokugawa-period symbol for the flow of sexual passions--as we will see below in more detail. In short, the image is infused with a double-layered sense of the erotic. It alludes to one of Prince Genji's youthful affairs, and it presents the start of that affair in terms of contemporary symbols of glamour and sex.

The Wagō Twins. Let us now turn to a more complex set of examples featuring combinations of classical imagery from China. A pair of quasi-divine twins became popular in South China as symbols of wealth and harmonious relationships. Known in Chinese as He-he 和合, they are sometimes called the "Heavenly Twins" in English (but not consistently). The Japanese pronunciation of their name is Wagō 和合, and here I will generally call them the "Wagō Twins" and refer to pictures of them as "Wagō images." The word wagō literally means "harmonious conjoining." In typical Chinese (and also in many Japanese) portrayals, the Wagō appear as boys or young men, one of whom holds a lotus flower (Buddhist symbol of purity) and the other holds a bowl. The bowl is often full of money or other indications of wealth. Underfoot and/or surrounding them are symbols of wealth. Pause now to *study this image.* Some of the items at (or under) their feet include the Daoist fungus (or mushroom) of immortality and coins of several sizes. Ultimately, these images symbolized wealth, prosperity, happiness, and warm, harmonious human relations.

For this reason, one direction in which Wagō images developed in Tokugawa Japan was as talismanic images to be hung in the alcoves or other prominent places of homes. Sometimes these images #received special veneration.# The idea, of course, was that the presence and/or veneration of a Wagō image would bring about wealth, prosperity, happiness, and warm, harmonious human relations. It may seem ridiculous (as indeed it did to many Japanese at the time), but we do things like that all the time (wishing wells, good-luck charms of all kinds, etc). And similarly, we find example of board games (sugoroku 双六) in which the object was to become a wealthy, prosperous, harmonious couple. In the #example featured here,# the couple bask happily in wealthy surroundings. Hanging on the wall behind them is a Wagō image.

Well, you have probably guessed the next logical step: *take a look.* The harmonious couple in this famous image have become an allegory for heterosexual attraction. Notice that Hokusai's image is more complex than it appears at first glance in that it combines a Chinese-derived art motif with a theme from ancient Japanese folk religion to produce a piece of erotic art.

The Wagō Twins had to become male and female to function in an image like Hokusai's. Such a transformation was not particularly difficult, at least during the Tokugawa period. You might have noticed already that there is almost no difference in clothing styles, hair styles, or facial features between men and women depicted in most Tokugawa-vintage erotic prints. This point is explained further in the final section, but indeed, Tokugawa images placed almost no importance on secondary sexual characteristics. Men and women all appear in a unisex mode, with only their sexual organs--usually amplified in size--to distinguish them. Therefore, making one of these two young men into a woman was, for Hokusai, just a matter of making his head into a penis.

But the fact that the Wagō Twins were two handsome young lads was not lost to Edo viewers. Another feature of Tokugawa-period sexuality examined more fully in the final section was that there was no sharp distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality as fundamental orientations (i.e., you are oriented toward one or the other). Instead, both were seen as "flavors" of sexuality along a continuum of possibilities. Most people preferred one flavor or the other and some liked both equally. All indications are that bisexuality was common in Tokugawa-period Japan. So, while the Wagō Twins could stand for heterosexual attraction, they could even more easily stand for homosexual attraction. Here, for example, they appear as well-known *Kabuki actors.*

Kabuki actors, especially the men who performed women's roles (onnagata), often doubled as highly-paid prostitutes. Here, the two actors are depicted with obvious iconographic features marking them as Wagō Twins. One, in female attire, stands holding the basket. The seated actor, though not explicitly identified, is most likely Ichikawa Danjūrō IV, who committed suicide in 1854.

Kanzan (Ch. Hanshan) and Jittoku (Ch. Shide). The depictions of the Wagō Twins are very similar to those of another pair of men, whose Chinese names are Hanshan 寒山 and Shide 拾得. Here, we will use the Japanese pronunciation of their names, which is #Kanzan# 寒山 and #Jittoku# 拾得 respectively. To begin, study this typical *depiction of Kanzan and Jittoku.* The similarity to the Wagō Twins should be obvious, but there are several iconographic differences. For one thing, there is no sign of coins, jewels, or other forms of wealth. And the objects they hold are different. The main identifying feature of Kanzan is his scroll(s); the main idenfidying feature if Jittoku is his broom. Many Chinese and Japanese tended to regard Kanzan/Jittoku and the Wagō Twins as variations on the same theme. In Japan Kanzan and Jittoku came to be seen as  local manifestations of Bodhisattvas in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. In both China and Japan, Kanzan and Jittoku were often depicted as Zen-style recluses, with odd-looking, comical faces. Often the two are depicted as laughing and taking delight in the world around them--*especially its strange and unusual manifestations.*

Quiz. Now, with this background information in mind, try your hand at analyzing *this image* by Suzuki Harunobu (ca. 1725-1770). Specifically: which of these two (the man or the woman) is an allegory of Kanzan and why; which is an allegory of Jittoku and why? Although answering these questions may be easy, you might still be wondering why transforming Kanzan and Jittoku into a young couple would appeal to viewers and print buyers? Let us consider more closely another, similar image by Suzuki Harunobu.

In *Allegory of Kanzan and Jittoku,* Kanzan and Jittoku take the form of young Japanese women. One is reading a long letter in the manner of Kanzan and his scroll. The other woman, probably a household servant, holds a broom, thus bringing to mind Jittoku. Would most Tokugawa-period viewers have thought of Kanzan and Jittoku upon seeing this image? Probably not immediately, which would be one of the appealing aspects of the work. But because Kanzan and Jittoku were so popular in Tokugawa Japan, it is likely that a careful viewer would, after some time, recognize that the broom and scroll-letter allude to the Chinese recluses. Notice the stylized cloud at the top. Water in general was the most common sexual symbol in Tokugawa Japan, with cloudbursts being a common symbol for sexual climax. In this case, the cloud seems calm, and in it is written a Heian-period poem:

If I hadn't met that man,

I wouldn't have such a burning passion to see him,

and wouldn't resent him so deeply,

or myself for falling in love. (translation by Fister in The Shunga of Suzuki Harunobu, p. 70.)

In this context, the scroll-like letter is probably from "that man," and both women seem intensely interested in its contents. At first glance, these worldly urban women may well seem utterly remote from the two Chinese recluses, and, indeed, the high degree of contrast may well have been appealing to Japanese viewers. But as Hayakawa Monta argues, these allegorical paintings and prints often "concealed the desire to discover the kernel of something sacred within something familiar, wanting to see a familiar thing as a manifestation of something sacred" (The Shunga of Suzuki Harunobu, p. 73). So, is this work an example of the artist trying to raise the relatively mundane act of fretting or agonizing over a love affair into something more profound? Though we cannot say for sure, it is likely that by the subtle likening these two women to Kanzan and Jittoku, Harunobu opened up the possibility of the viewer projecting a Buddhist reading into the print.

Irreverence and sarcasm. Another possibility--although unlikely in this case--is that the allegorical print of Kanzan and Jittoku was meant as an irreverent or sarcastic critique of the Buddhist/Daoist reclusion of Kanzan and Jittoku. Although I doubt the artist himself intended such a reading (based on the larger corpus of his work), it is certainly possible that some viewers did read it this way. Keep in mind that the producers of texts and images for public consumption have little control over how their products will be "consumed" by readers and viewers. But setting Allegory of Kanzan and Jittoku aside, there is no doubt that irreverence, iconoclasm, and sarcasm were significant themes in Tokugawa-period art and literature.

One example was the *Kume Immortal,* who will make another appearance in the next chapter. Here is another example that builds on material we have already studied in Chapter Five. Recall the story of Chao Fu and his ox, #clicking here# if you need to refresh your memory. Specifically, recall that in the Muromachi period, Chao Fu (and Xu You) were paragons of absolute moral purity, who would make not the slightest compromise with the corrupt ways of the world. In the late Muromachi period, such moral purity might have seemed appealing to many Japanese, but amidst the relative peace and prosperity of the Tokugawa period, such moral posturing would have tended to strike city dwellers as pompous and absurd. Recall that the prevailing cultural values of urban Tokugawa society were those of the merchants, which tended to stress realism, humor, and a celebration of enjoyment and consumption. In such a spirit, why not *replace Chao Fu with a prostitute?* This image of a prostitute leading the ox is from approximately the middle of the Tokugawa period. Let us zoom forward in time about a century to 1859, at the end of the Tokugawa period. Take a look at this *scene of a brothel* that specialized in serving Anglo-European visitors. Can you identify and explain the iconoclastic parody in this scene? If you need a hint, #click here.# Suppose the scene were a present-day brothel in Nevada or perhaps Australia (where such establishments are legal). Whose picture might be hung on the wall to produce a similar effect?

Major Sexual Symbols. Let us now examine several of the common symbols in sexually suggestive art in Tokugawa times. Once you are aware of these symbols, then the prints and other images that would strike today's viewers as mundane scenes reveal themselves to have been full of erotic charge for Tokugawa-period viewers.

We have already seen the first symbol: water. The very name "ukiyo" (floating world) suggests water, and "clouds and rain" was a common verbal expression for sex. Water can be found in a large number--probably a majority--of erotic or suggestive prints. Study these *two typical examples.* This association for sex with water indicates a male point of view: water was the classic yin symbol in the yin-yang polarity. Yin was associated with such characteristics and attributes as: female, wet, cold, moon, dark. Yang, by contrast was: male, dry, hot, sun, light. In addition to the existence of water in various forms, moving water--especially vigorously moving water such as a downpour of rain, a swift stream, a waterfall, or breaking waves--symbolized the full arousal of sexual passion. Timon Screech explains the situation as follows:

Water was the element of yin, the feminine, designated as moist, dark, and recessive. Sex was discreetly referred to by such yin euphemisms as the moment of 'clouds and rain' (un'u). Use of an iconography of water extended to figures associated with lakes and falls. To anyone remotely knowledgeable about the cultural tradition, this would lead at once to Li Bo, the Tang-period [Chinese] poet whose verse on viewing a waterfall was famous and who was commonly depicted in the act of  looking at a cascade. (Sex and the Floating World, p. 130.)

Screech also points out that the extensive use of water as a sexual symbol in these prints is an example of a general principle: the symbolism in Tokugawa-period prints forms a male perspective. Nearly all prints were produce by men and (with a few possible exceptions) for men. Urban women would surely have recognized the symbolism, and, to varying degrees, might have found some of the prints interesting--perhaps even to the extent of buying one or two. But we are dealing here with a male-oriented symbol set.

Now, with these points in mind, consider this image of a *woman in a rainstorm.* For a viewer today, it might not suggest anything erotic. To a Tokugawa-period urban Japanese, however, it would have been full of erotic suggestion. Let us now look more closely at the example of Li Bo that Screech mentions above.

Although Chinese, Li Bo's romantic poetry was well known in Japan. By the Muromachi period, it had become common for Japanese painters to depict specific scenes from Li's better-known poems. Take a look at this Muromachi-period example showing *Li Bo gazing at a waterfall.* Li Bo was fond of this sort of rustic recreation, and a famous verse of his about gazing on a waterfall made similar verses about waterfall gazing a stock element in Chinese and Japanese poetry. Here, by contrast, are two *typical Tokugawa-period images.* Notice that the depictions of Li bo and the waterfall are in the background in the form of hanging wall paintings.

Let us consider one more water-related example. Yoshiwara, the official (and most expensive) brothel district was usually located on the outskirts of town amid marshland best reached by boat. The Yoshiwara district was the ultimate sexual thrill for urbane Tokugawa men (or perhaps I should say "fantasy" because only the ultra rich could afford the place--and there were other cultural barriers to entry), and it was surrounded by swamps and other bodies of water--except at some of its temporary locations. (Incidentally, a connection between female sexual power/allure and water, especially swamps, has been noted by scholars of Western sexuality. In a European context, there tended to be more emphasis on the destructive power of this watery realm, though the power of water to envelop and destroy men was also a theme--albeit somewhat more muted--in Tokugawa Japan as well. It is not recommended that you click here.) With these points about Yoshiwara in mind, study *this image.* Notice that the man walking along the embankment is almost completely enveloped in an umbrella, giving his overall shape a peculiar, almost phallic appearance. It just so happens that umbrellas also functioned as sexual symbols in Tokugawa-era prints.

Umbrellas. To say that umbrellas functioned as sexual symbols is not to say that every time any Japanese artist depicted an umbrella the work in question was erotic. Often umbrellas were simply umbrellas, and the same goes for all of the symbols discussed in this section. But under the right conditions, umbrellas were a phallic symbol. The man walking along the embankment to Yoshiwara in the downpour, for example, has lost all individual identity. In this context, he stands for heterosexual male desire generally.

Umbrellas and parasols are common in Tokugawa erotic prints. Sometimes the phallic sense of the umbrella is minimal; sometimes it is *obvious,* and sometimes it is clearly present but *somewhat more subtle.*

Umbrellas were not the only phallic symbols in these prints. Various tubes, pipes, and flute-like wind instruments could also perform such symbolic duties. Perhaps most common was the shakuhachi, a long wind instrument held straight out from the body. *This print* is a good example of the erotic potential of the shakuhachi, which, incidentally, is today a well-recognized verbal and visual symbol of fellatio. Other possibilities for phallic symbolism included blow darts (projected from long tubes--a common game), blowing bubbles (innocent when done by children, not always so when *done by adults*), and blowing various kinds of toys (again, when done by adults). Tobacco pipes, incidentally did not serve as phallic symbols in Japan, whereas they did in Europe at the time (and were thus not smoked by women, whereas Japanese women frequently smoked pipes).

Vaginal Symbols. Erotic prints of the Tokugawa period also commonly featured vaginal symbols, which tended to be more subtle than the phallic ones. Cups and bowls were one possibility, though, of course, they could also stand simply for cups and bowls. In the right context, however, a cup could be highly suggestive, as in *this example.* The most common vaginal symbol, however, was the sleeve. Clothing in general--especially expensive clothing--often served as an eroticized surface in shunga (much like the function of skin in Western-style erotic imagery). The sleeves of the robes worn at this time were long, wide, and contained several openings. In classical Japanese literature, the expression "to wet one's sleeve" (sode o nurasu) indicated an outpouring of intense emotions. Sleeve length even indicated sexual availability (at least in theory), for married women wore (relatively) short-sleeved garments. With these points in mind, study *this image.* Another vaginal symbol was the clam shell. Recall the Utamaro image Lovers With Clam Shell from the previous section and the verse about the snipe's bill being held firmly in the grip of the clam shell. This combination of image and verse tends to emphasize the power of the vagina in contrast to the softer image of vagina-as-sleeve.

Plants as Symbols. Several types of plants and animals could serve as erotic symbols. Here let us look only at the plants. Suppose you came across this Tokugawa-period print of a young man *handing an eggplant* to a young woman as they walk among the fields. Is it just a scene of rural surroundings? Think it through. First, the print depicts the point in the agricultural cycle when the crops have ripened and are ready to harvest and eat. And did you notice that she extends the sleeves of her garment to receive the eggplant? And what about the swirling water in the stream behind them (as well as the standing water in the fields around them)? All indications point to sexual overtones, especially when you know that the eggplant (nasu or #nasubi#) was and is a common phallic symbol. And indeed, during the Tokugawa period, relatively #long and slender eggplants# were indeed used as phallic substitutes. Finally, notice the two logs comprising the simple bridge. They are pointed at a willow (or willow-like) tree, a plant symbol of yin/female. The entire print resonates with sexual overtones, mainly because of plant symbols. Now, try your hand at analyzing a *plant-symbol image.*

The plum and cherry blossoms, favorite images in classical Japanese literature, figured prominently in the repertoire of Tokugawa erotic symbols. The interplay of these symbols could be quite complex, but the basic meaning of the plum blossom was male sexuality and the basic meaning of the cherry blossom was female sexuality. These meanings could be heterosexual or homosexual in nature depending on the context, and in certain homoerotic contexts the cherry blossom could indicate a boy partner of an older man. To "break" a cherry blossom or a plum blossom--in the sense of breaking off a twig or small branch on which the flowers are blooming--meant to offer one's sexuality to another. If you did not look at Toyonobu's *Girl Tying Verse to a Cherry Branch* in the previous section, do so now. Although not breaking off a twig, the sexual overtones of the scene are enhanced by the type of flower. An what about a night scene in which a young woman is about to smell the fragrance of a branch of plum blossoms? *Check it out.* Here is a #similar example.#

The characteristics of these two flowers related to predominant male views (or wishful thinking) about sex at the time. Recall that the cherry blossom is beautiful, delicate, and blooms only for a short time in the spring. The plum, by contrast is sturdy and blooms in the winter. Similarly, the thinking went, female sexual beauty/appeal reaches a peak early in life and quickly fades. Male sexual beauty/appeal lasts longer and "blooms" later in life. Therefore, in this line of thinking, it would only be natural for middle aged men to have sexual relations with younger women as #this image# suggests. A most convenient viewpoint for middle aged men!  Of course, in practice it was rich middle aged men who were most likely to have communed with nature in this manner. (Incidentally the general wisdom in today's United States is the opposite: men reach their peak sexual vigor around 18-20; women around 35-40.)

In addition to native Japanese sexual symbols direct or indirect references to those of China were always possible. Few Japanese would have been knowledgeable of the finer points of Chinese sexual symbolism, but most literate urban dwellers (perhaps 30-40% of the population of major cities) would have been familiar with the better known Chinese symbols and famous people. In the realm of flowers, #the peony# is a good example. In China the peony had two related symbolic meanings in the realm of erotica. First, it signified the female organs. From about the time of the Ming dynasty onward, however, the symbolic meaning broadened to indicate women who were both sexually alluring and intellectually witty. #This image# is an example of this latter sense of the peony in China. In Tokugawa Japan, several artists produced images of beautiful women standing or sitting next to one or more large peony flowers. Typically, such women are portrayed as Chinese, as in *these examples.* In other words, the peony was an erotic symbol in Japan, but it almost always pointed to a Chinese example of erotic beauty. In most (or perhaps all--sometimes the image was ambiguous) of these Japanese examples, the woman thus portrayed was the famous Chinese beauty Yang Guifei 楊貴妃 (Japanese = Yō Kihi) famous (or infamous) for nearly destroying the Tang dynasty. Here is a #Japanese image of her.#

In addition to straightforward depictions of Yang Guifei, we can also find mildly humorous images that substitute others for the characters of Yang Guifei and the Tang emperor. For example, consider *this famous painting* by Suzuki Harunobu of Yang Guifei and the Tang emperor. The same artist later produced a serious of images depicting the adventures of a "Bean Man"--shrunk to the size of a bean by divine intervention so that he could roam around and watch people have sex in various situations and circumstances. One of those images is set in Yoshiwara and features a man using his erect penis to *play a shamisen in a percussive manner.* Notice the close similarity of the two images. Of course the one set in Japan depicts a more down-to-earth situation, but not everyone can be as refined as Emperor Xuan Zong (famous for his cultural refinement) and his captivating concubine! Hayakawa Monta comments on this image as follows:

When I look at this picture, a painting by Harunobu comes to mind. It is a horizontal painting titled Emperor Xuan Zong and Yang Gui-fei . . . depicting the pair playing a flute together, leaning against each other with their heads and shoulders touching. If we change the flute to a shamisen, it overlaps exactly with the scene in this picture [of lady Yang]. The shamisen is an instrument associated with the pleasures of the brothel; if the belly is a mitate [analogue] for a drum and the erect phallus a mitate for a plectrum, the scene becomes a mitate for "beating a big drum" truly befitting shunga. Maneemon [the bean man] is elated and accompanies them by tapping on a teacup with a chopstick. Only in Yoshiwara would this kind of absurd play occur. (The Shunga of Suzuki Harunobu, pp. 60-61.)

Also recall the link with a tanuki and his huge scrotum in connection with "beating a big drum."

This survey does not exhaust the list of possible Tokugawa-period sexual symbols, but we have covered the most important and common ones. You should now be able to analyze most of the Tokugawa-era erotic prints out there, and there are many. Just do a google.com search for "shunga" and you can practice analyzing them until your intellectual curiosity is thoroughly satisfied.

One final word about these erotic images: like erotic pictures in many cultures, shunga were fantasy images. They were, of course, based on actual practices, but a close look at the positions and activities of the men and women thus depicted reveals that ordinary people simply could not do many of those things *without spraining joints or breaking bones.* Indeed, Tokugawa Japan's urban residents were aware of this disjuncture between visual fantasy and the limits of human bodies, and there were various popular expressions and poem-ditties about foolish couples who injured themselves while trying to "do is as in shunga."

This section has surveyed aspects of the symbolic language of sexuality and eroticism in Tokugawa Japan. The next section takes a somewhat different focus. Its emphasis is on behavior, more specifically, modern attempts at social engineering in the realm of sexual behavior. The approach is to examine major changes that took place from the time of the Tokugawa period to the time of the late Meiji period, though most of the details describe the Tokugawa situation. For a more detailed study of sex in modern Japan, take HIST 481. As a preview, you can click on the final link at the end of the this chapter.

From Tokugawa to Meiji

A major change took place in Japan during the nineteenth century in official attitudes about sexual behavior and in the relative importance of sexuality in general as a matter for official state concern and regulation. Simply stated, in modern times the range of proper or generally acceptable (socially, morally, legally or otherwise) sexual behaviors narrowed significantly, and the state took an increasingly greater interest in regulating these behaviors. Here is a a list of the major changes concerning sexuality that took place across the span of the nineteenth century, that is, from about 1800 to about 1900:

Let us briefly examine most of these items before moving on to examine the modern situation in more detail. The Tokugawa period was a time when explicit, erotic woodblock prints were produced in large quantities for sale to the urban public. Many of these prints have survived to this day and are widely available in museums, art books, and on-line galleries (search for "shunga"). A common reaction from contemporary viewers of these prints is that they seem not so much erotic as strange—or even grotesque. This reaction is common for both Japanese and non-Japanese, although, because such images have been and are so commonly available in Japan, many Japanese are simply more accustomed to them. This generally negative reaction to Tokugawa-era visual eroticism is not usually the result of prudery, although the anti-sex crowd would certainly condemn this genre of prints as evil. Instead, major shifts in views of the male and female bodies account for today's viewers of Tokugawa-era erotic images regarding them as odd and unrealistic.

Perhaps the most obvious distortion in these prints to contemporary eyes is the exaggerated size and detail of the male and female sexual organs. The degree of exaggeration varied from print to print, but striking examples are common. Take *this print* as a typical example. You should have no trouble seeing the tendency to exaggerate the sexual organs—especially the penis in this case. And just to be sure you have grasped the point, take a look at *this example* as well. Why might the sexual organs in these and numerous prints like them have been depicted so prominently? Can you make any kind of a guess from studying the images? As a hint, study this *French erotic image* from the eighteenth century. Notice that, although the man's penis is visible, it is not prominent. Indeed, were it to be covered over, the painting would lose little if any of its erotic impact. So what is it that makes it erotic? As a further hint, examine *this image* from Europe. Now you should be able to see a major difference between Tokugawa Japan and early-modern Europe in the representation of eroticism.

In the popular imagination of Tokugawa Japan, there was little difference between male and female bodies. Go back and look at the two Japanese examples. Compare the faces and overall body shapes of the men and women. Note that there is little difference in secondary sexual characteristics. Therefore, it is the genitals that must bear nearly all of the markings of difference between men and women, and thus they are *prominently depicted in erotic images.* In the European example, on the other hand, it is the secondary sexual characteristics—facial hair or its lack, breast shape, shape of the pelvic area, facial features, etc.—that mark the boundaries between men and women. The genitals need not even be displayed, and, when they are, they usually appear in roughly realistic proportion to the rest of the body and its many other markers of sexual difference.

Perhaps more basic is another difference in erotic representation. Notice the extensive depiction of elaborate clothing in the Japanese examples, especially the second one. This depiction of lush clothing was the norm in Tokugawa eroticism. Indeed, there is very little nudity---often just enough to display the huge sexual organs---in many such Tokugawa prints. By contrast, most Western eroticism depicts extensive nudity, and even what clothing may be depicted is often designed to emphasize the presence of nude skin. In other words, in Western traditions of erotic depiction skin itself is sexy, and, indeed, in ordinary life, there was very little skin to be seen on the streets of Europe. Thus, the display of skin became sexually charged.

In Japan, as we have seen, a high degree of nudity was common in the daily life of most ordinary people. Skin was no big deal, but splendid silk clothing was rare and expensive. In Tokugawa Japan, prostitutes, especially the elite courtesans, advertised their sexuality not by displaying skin but by parading through the streets in multiple layers of elegant clothing. To touch and feel such exquisite cloth was something only the rich could do on a regular basis. For most Japanese, the fondling of such cloth might take place only in their fantasies. Thus, elegant, finely-woven, brightly colored cloth, not skin, became sexually charged in Tokugawa-era erotic art. This phenomenon, of course, is also a good example of the merging of fantasies of wealth with fantasies of sex. The merging of these two types of fantasies is a common occurrence anywhere, though the details might well be very different from place to place, as in the examples we have seen.

There is a more general point that these details reveal about erotic depiction in Tokugawa Japan: that Tokugawa-era Japanese did not have a strong sense of gender difference based on physiology. Language, gestures, and certain aspects of clothing, hairstyles, jewelry--not basic differences in physical features--served to differentiate men and women. Because all these markers of difference were social constructs, it was entirely possible that men could pass as women and vice versa by carefully studying, practicing, and then utilizing all the appropriate social markers of the gender one sought to imitate. The most famous example of such imitation is the category of male actors, today called onnagata, who played women's roles on stage.

Because Tokugawa-period Japanese tended to regard the overall body shapes of men and women as nearly the same, the only significant physical marker of difference were the sex organs themselves. In Europe at this time, by contrast, the bodily shapes resulting from secondary sexual characteristics were thought to be so distinctive in marking gender that no man could pass as a woman or vice versa, and attempts to to so usually took place only within the context of comedy or farce. Indeed, depictions of men, and, especially, women often exaggerated these secondary characteristics unrealistically. Probably the most common example was exaggerating the width of the pelvic bone and hips. The main point of contrast here is that in the Western world, at least in early modern times, gender differences were regarded as hard-wired products of biology first and foremost, and social markers of gender were typically regarded as following "naturally" from these biological differences. In Tokugawa Japan, it was the social markers of gender that were most prominent in people's imaginations. For those who want to delve into this topic further, read Timon Screech, Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700-1820 (Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 1999).

This Japanese view of the male and female bodies underwent substantial change in the direction of Western perceptions during the Meiji period. In the background, this shift was a major contributor to an increasing rigidity of gender roles for ordinary people in modern times, a topic we examine in a later chapter.

Another distinction that became common (i.e., common sense) in the Western world but which was absent or very weak in Tokugawa Japan was that of homosexuality versus heterosexuality. Many textbooks of Japanese history point out that homosexuality was common in Tokugawa Japan and widely accepted. While this statement is roughly correct in terms of modern categories, a slightly deeper look at the situation is necessary. Specifically, we should question the very existence of categories like "heterosexual" or "homosexual." Indeed, when we do so, we find that in Tokugawa Japan, there was only one category: sexuality. This category included a variety of erotic behaviors, which could further be distinguished by two general flavors joshoku (sexual activity between men and women), and nanshoku (same-sex sexual activity). Significantly, these flavors were not categories of people but of behaviors. These two flavors of sexuality were available for anyone, and partaking of one did not necessarily exclude the other. Indeed, a sufficiently wealthy or influential person might combine them both at the same time and place.

In today's terminology, therefore, the typical Tokugawa Japanese was more or less bisexual, although Tokugawa Japanese generally recognized that people tended to have a preference for one flavor of sexuality or the other. But either way, joshoku and nanshoku were not radically different things. They were simply two broad varieties of sexuality and sexual activity. Was there any major condemnation of those who preferred nanshoku? The answer depends on what is meant by "major." We can find some Confucian scholars and other moralists who did denounce nanshoku as improper, though often in the context of a broader critique of a society allegedly obsessed with sex. But overall, these moralists did not enjoy a large or influential audience, and, as a generality, it is probably accurate to say that there was little or no social censure of nanshoku in Tokugawa times. For more on this topic, see the book by Screech mentioned above.

During the Meiji period this situation began to change---again, in the general direction of Western views of heterosexuals and homosexuals being radically different types of people who engaged in radically different forms of behavior. And, as you might have guessed, an official line soon developed to say that heterosexual behavior alone was legitimate. Almost certainly because of the lack of Christian influence, modern Japan was never so intolerant of homosexuality as were many Western societies. But it was precisely this Western hostility to homosexuality that drove the Meiji state and its successors to sanction only heterosexual behavior as normative. In other words, if for no other reason that to appear "civilized" in the eyes of the powerful imperialist countries, it was virtually inevitable that the Meiji state would put its weight behind the creation of a Japan that recognized heterosexuality alone as correct and proper. By the twentieth century, most Japanese probably saw homosexuality and heterosexuality as radically different personal orientations, much like most Westerners did.

This official opposition to and redefinition of the nanshoku flavor of sex was part of a broader effort by the state to regulate the sexual behavior of its citizens. In part, this desire to regulate was a reflection of efforts to make Japan's people look better in the eyes of the powerful foreigners. In part it also reflected the state's desire to promote a well-ordered society whose citizens worked hard on behalf of the nation. Such a society would tend to limit sexual freedom as part of an effort to regulate family life and instill in its youth a sense of discipline and sacrifice.

During the Tokugawa period, sexual customs varied considerably based on social status, and, to a lesser extent, on geography. Generally speaking, rich urbanites and samurai lived by more restrictive codes of behavior (official or unofficial) than did ordinary Japanese, especially those in the countryside. The burden of strict norms of sexual behavior fell especially heavily on the backs of elite women, and it was among elite Japanese in the Tokugawa period that gender roles in every respect tended to be rigid and unequal. For the majority of peasants, however, customary practices allowed greater sexual freedom for women. Furthermore, economic needs and the patterns of daily life tended to encourage a blurring of social gender roles in rural areas and to promote relative economic, social, and sexual equality among men and women.

During the Meiji period this situation changed markedly. Through civil law, legislation, police orders, popular media and, perhaps most importantly, the emerging state-run school system, we find a strong tendency to take the gender- and sex-related norms of the former samurai class and reformulate them as norms for all Japanese citizens. This chapter and later ones will elaborate on certain aspects of this development.

As in all modern societies, Meiji Japan saw a sharp rise in the number of experts and specialists. In some realms, the norms of expertise were well established, either by prior custom or by adopting European standards. In many new realms of knowledge, however, the promoters of certain forms of expertise had to work hard to market themselves. In other words, they had to make a convincing case that their academic or professional discipline was both legitimate and necessary for the betterment of society. This process of struggling to establish new realms of knowledge as formal disciplines went on everywhere in the modern world. Psychology, for example, became a legitimate discipline with professional standards and formal recognition only around the turn of the twentieth century, even though physicians and many others had long been interested in mental health (broadly speaking) throughout previous centuries. One fascinating example of professional/academic discipline that arose in Meiji Japan was "monsterology," described in detail by Gerald Figal in Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan. This chapter will be concerned with the rise of sexology as a professional discipline in modern Japan and its connections with the state's attempts at social management. The typical rhetorical strategy employed by the practitioners of most new disciplines aspiring to full legitimacy in the eyes of society was to describe monsterology, sexology, or whatever as a "science" and to liken its workings to a scientific discipline like biology that was already well established.

In Tokugawa Japan, sexuality was widely recognized as an important realm of life, both for individual people and society as a whole. There were various theories about connections between sexual activities and physical or mental health, and literate Japanese could read about such matters in published books. There were no special qualifications that authorized someone to write about this topic, though physicians and Confucian scholars (and many Confucian scholars were also physicians) were perhaps the most likely groups. There was an even larger literature about how to have fun via sexual activities, which ranged from relatively restrained advice to what would strike many modern readers as pornography. As an example of the more restrained variety of academic writing about sex in Tokugawa times, let us take the example of Kaibara Ekken, a Confucian scholar whose interests ranged widely but tended to center on what today we would call the natural sciences. In some of this writings, this interest in natural sciences took the form of advice for healthy living. In typical Confucian fashion, Kaibara tended to emphasize restraint and discipline, as in the following example from the chapter "How to Keep Good Health" in Yōjōkun (Principles for Nurturing Life):

Although if one indulges in food, drink, and sex as one's desires dictate, at first there is a sense of pleasure for a while, afterwards this pleasure will certainly turn to physical damage and long misfortune. If one wishes to avoid the consequent misfortune, one must not seek the initial pleasure. Anything that affords pleasure at the outset metes out misfortune in the end. On the other hand, if one makes an effort at self-restraint in the beginning, one will surely be rewarded with pleasure afterwards. [several sections later:] The four essentials of health preservation are not to get angry, not to worry too much, not to talk too much, and not to indulge one's desires too much. (Quoted in Ekiken Kaibara, Yōjōkun: Japanese Secret of Good Health [Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., 1974]: 31, 47.)

Later in this volume, Kaibara devotes an entire chapter to keeping sexual desire well under control at various stages of life and in various circumstances. He includes specific recommendations about the ideal frequency of sexual "discharges" for people at different ages (we will briefly return to this specific point later, when discussing modern obsessions regarding masturbation). Kaibara's view of health is ultimately all about ideal balances, however, and so he warns that excessive self-restraint in the realm of sex can also be harmful. For those tormented by sexual urges but who have already "maxed out" on the ideal number of discharges, he recommends sexual activity that stops short of orgasm, which "is easy to practice, and gives sexual satisfaction even without discharge and is therefore a good way to improve circulation of the vitality and preserve one's energy"(p. 87). Other advice includes never engaging in sex in front of a shrine, temple, or other holy place, or when "boils and other skin eruptions have not yet healed" (p. 89). Another of Kaibara's essays is entitled Principles of Enjoyment (Rakkun). In it, he takes the same approach as we have seen with regard to sexual matters, namely, that maximum enjoyment is the result of a well-ordered, balanced life.

Kaibara's disciplined approach to life always had its adherents in Tokugawa times, but it tended to sound stuffy and old-fashioned to those with the means to indulge in the pleasures afforded by the large urban centers. Many historians of Tokugawa Japan have pointed out that urban popular values tended to emphasize conspicuous consumption and a life of sensual pleasure. The basic thinking went: you can't take your money with you when you go, so live it up while you still can. In the context of such values, publishers frequently put out guides to the various brothel districts and writers like (most famously) Ihara Saikaku celebrated a life of lust in his widely popular novels and short stories (e.g., #Life of an Amorous Man,# Life of an Amorous Woman, and many others).

Whether in Tokugawa times or modern times, writers like Ihara made no special claim to academic training when writing about sex. Kaibara, on the other hand, carefully argued his points based on a large body of Chinese and Japanese academic literature, and references to classical writings are found throughout his advice on sex, enjoyment, and anything else. But there was no recognized academic specialty in sexuality or the sexual sciences in Kaibara's day. Instead, writers like him included sexual matters within a much broader context of human, social and cosmic affairs. Tokugawa-era Confucian scholars like Kaibara were often wide-ranging generalists.